But one alternative namespace operator defends his offering. “Am I ripping people off if they can't buy my product at every store, and they had knowledge that this was a boutique item?” asked Karl Auerbach. Currently an adviser emeritus for Interworking Labs, a company that creates products to test network protocol interoperability, Auerbach is a former ICANN board member and previously worked for Precept Software, an IPTV developer acquired by Cisco Systems. He also has a plan to sell domain names with the “.ewe” suffix, which is not recognized by ICANN.

“It started as a joke, but I decided it will be serious,” said Auerbach, who plans to sell domain names without an expiration date that will be based on a cryptographic bearer bond. “It's up to me to do the marketing,” added Auerbach, who likens his offering to a new cable channel that must promote itself in order to persuade cable operators to carry it.

Perhaps not all balkanization exists for commercial reasons; there may be political ones, as well. “China seems to have set up some top-level domains that are only visible on its own server,” Auerbach said.

Robert Shaw, deputy head of strategy and policy for the International Telecommunications Union, likens such balkanization to the 800-number system. Most 800 numbers only work within a country. In the case of 800 numbers, Shaw said, “For the U.S. economy, or 300 million people, we thought it was a great thing to do. It's a multi-billion dollar-a-year industry in the U.S., and the fact that it wasn't globally resolvable was no problem.”

Extending that analogy, he said, domain names that are only resolvable within China or the Arab world might be appropriate. “Who's right is it to tell them they shouldn't do it if it solves their needs?” he asked.